The present invention relates to a textile material on the basis of silk in which the silk is present in the felted state.
It was previously not possible to felt silk because in contrast to natural wool or natural hair, the silk filament has a smooth surface.
The felting treatment that is customary with textile materials on a natural hair basis is based on the fact that the rough wool hairs become mutually caught up and linked together. Of course, such a treatment is not possible with the smooth silk thread.
Natural silk is considered to be a very high quality textile raw material, and in particular recently has been finding increasing attention because silk is formed from pure natural fiber and has valuable properties, such as low weight, good heat and moisture regulation, is kind to the skin, etc.
Textile felt materials have, among others, the advantage that they do not have any regular thread course which has to be taken into account during the processing. Furthermore, due to their fluffy nature, such textile materials are relatively favorable as regards heat and moisture regulation.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a textile material in which the aforementioned favorable properties of silk are combined with the advantageous structure and the resulting properties of a felt.